Nikkei Inc. and The Asahi Shimbun Company v. Perplexity AI, Inc. (Tokyo District Court)

Summary

Nikkei and The Asahi Shimbun jointly sued Perplexity AI in the Tokyo District Court on August 26, 2025. They allege that Perplexity copied and stored their articles without permission, including paywalled Nikkei content, ignored robots.txt instructions, and displayed responses reproducing the articles, infringing reproduction, adaptation and public-transmission rights under Japan's Copyright Act. They also allege unfair competition because Perplexity attributed inaccurate answers to them. They seek an injunction, deletion of stored articles and 2.2 billion yen each in damages as a partial claim. The claims are allegations.

Key dates

1. August 26, 2025Filed
2. October 16, 2026Checked against sources
3. October 21, 2026Checked against sources

Developments are added when the record is reviewed. Next review: January 15, 2027.

Evidence

Each passage is quoted from its source. The quoted passages are re-checked against the live pages every month.

1. Nikkei Inc. and The Asahi Shimbun Company jointly filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court on August 26, 2025, against the U.S.-based generative AI company Perplexity AI, Inc.

   Supports: Parties, court, filing date

   Joint Lawsuit Filed Against Generative AI Company for Copyright Infringement Nikkei Inc. Primary source